Is Sunder a Standard Action or just something you can do any time you melee attack?

[Infiniti2000]

Add me to the "standard action" camp and color me surprised to find so many others. I specifically came to this choice after seeing an EEE rip apart my PCs' weapons.

 

[Whimsical]

Hm, I didn't know that sunder didn't have the footnote. I owe one of the PCs in my game a bow. It was sundered as part a full attack action.

 

[Paraxis]

I don't understand the confusion, text is more important then charts. If you want a more accurate answer look in the FAQ. A sunder is an attack just like trip and disarm. How else do dragons win .

Is sunder a special standard action or is it a melee
attack variant? It has its own entry on the actions table, but
the text describing it refers to it as a melee attack. Is sunder
a melee attack only in the sense of hitting something with a
melee weapon, or is sunder a true melee attack?

Sunder is a special kind of melee attack. If it were a special
standard action, its description would say so (as the descriptive
text for the Manyshot feat says).
If you make a full attack, and you have multiple attacks
from a high base attack bonus, you can sunder more than once,
or attack and sunder, or some other combination of attacking
and sundering.
Sunder does indeed get its own entry in Table 8-2: Actions
in Combat in the Player’s Handbook. It needs one because
unlike a regular melee attack, sunder provokes an attack of
opportunity (although not if you have the Improved Sunder
feat).
You can also disarm, grapple, or trip as a melee attack (or
attack of opportunity).

Now do I agree that vs. the BBEG this is an unbalanced stategy for him to sunder all the melee fighters best weapons, but rules are rules.

 

[Deset Gled]

Indeed it does. Because when you attempt a sunder, you make an melee attack. It doesn't say one way or the other whether this melee attack is interchangeable with melee attacks in general.


glass.

I do not see a disagreement between the table and the text at all. The text states that you use a melee attack as part of a Sunder, but not that you can Sunder as part of a melee attack. This is clarified by the table.

The fact that A is a part of B does not imply that B is a part of A. A similar example would be to say that you can use a rope to make a knot. However, any sailor will tell you that a rope sitting on a dock will not hold a boat at bay. You need the knot, which is more complex, and differs in quite a few ways (including the amount of time to make).

 

[Stalker0]

If this helps any, in Monte Cook's Arcana Evolved, Sunder is specifically listed as a standard action, so at least Monte seems to think it should be that way.

 

[Ogrork the Mighty]

Heck, I'd like to see most of the special attacks (disarm, trip, sunder, etc.) be classified as standard actions.

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

Indeed it does. Because when you attempt a sunder, you make an melee attack. It doesn't say one way or the other whether this melee attack is interchangeable with melee attacks in general.

Exactly; specifically, when you take the Sunder standard action, you make a melee attack with a slashing or bludgeoning weapon.

Similarly, when you take the Manyshot standard action, you make a ranged attack with a particular weapon.

Therefore, there is no conflict between text and table in this case.

 

[Legildur]

I don't understand the confusion, text is more important then charts. If you want a more accurate answer look in the FAQ.

Would that be the same FAQ that STILL lists the feint action as requiring a move action to perform (p11)?

Compare that with the PHB, p68:

A bluff check made to feint in combat or create a diversion to hide is a standard action.

 

[Hypersmurf]

Would that be the same FAQ that STILL lists the feint action as requiring a move action to perform (p11)?

I like the bit where it says "Sunder does indeed get its own entry in Table 8-2: Actions in Combat in the Player’s Handbook. It needs one because unlike a regular melee attack, sunder provokes an attack of opportunity."

Ignoring the fact that Disarm and Grapple both provoke AoOs, but neither of them are listed as standard actions on Table 8-2... and both of them get footnote 7...

-Hyp.

 

[glass]

Indeed it does. Because when you attempt a sunder, you make an melee attack. It doesn't say one way or the other whether this melee attack is interchangeable with melee attacks in general.

I do not see a disagreement between the table and the text at all. The text states that you use a melee attack as part of a Sunder, but not that you can Sunder as part of a melee attack. This is clarified by the table.

The fact that A is a part of B does not imply that B is a part of A.

Er, yeah. Isn't that what I said?



glass.